Just discovered this fascinating piece of info, about something called the Antikythera Mechanism
Really cool!!! Some info in astrology that isn really useful as well, since some of those astrological cycles are screaming "magically significant event!" 
Cheers!
Xavi
Happy if it pleases you I found it great, too
That is WAAAAAY cool! Now why do I think of The Dark Crystal now?
It's a fascinating artifact. I'd love to procure a replica but it's probably out of my league...
I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of the Jo Marchant book listed in the bibliography either at a library or via Amazon:
amazon.com/Decoding-Heavens- ... 672&sr=8-2
If you have university library access, she wrote an editorial in Nature that accompanies an article on the mechanism which includes some photographs / X-rays of the gears and a diagram of the mechanism's proposed construction and configuration.
This concept was one of the core ideas behind my recent Sub Rosa #5 piece (subrosamagazine.org/?p=375), "Dar al-Nujum: the House of the Heavens" which features a pre-Hemetic orrerry device that replicates the various astrological cycles detailed by the Antikythera device and includes some Astrological Breakthroughs and all sorts of story ideas.
Another good book on devices is "The Astrolabe" by James Morrison - it's pricy for a paperback but pretty amazing if you like detail.
(You can also order paper and card astrolabes from this guy, which look pretty interesting).
amazon.com/Astrolabe-James-E ... 953&sr=1-1
Cheers,
Jarkman
I am still waiting for Alex to put up the 4-issue subscription in order to get Sub Rosa 5 
Xavi
I'll be interested in your comments from a Barcelona native point of view, since it's set in NE Iberia.
Cheers,
Lachie
I always found it a marvellous piece of "early high tech".
And its been funny following the "development", because every time someone has figured out something new about it, its been along the lines of "oh dear its even MORE advanced than we thought"...